” I feel overwhelmed”. I remember myself saying that and thinking it on a number of occasions. Knock-on effects include anxiety, increased heart rate, lack of focus, decreased immunity, and poor sleep. Emotions are in a constant state of tension and guardedness. Muscles stiffen up, more energy is expended and motor patterns change. Not good at all.
If you’re not being mindful there’s a good chance you’re carrying more stress and tension than you realise which physiologically is going to prevent you from maximising your potential.
Mindfulness teaches you to pay attention as to whether your shoulders, facial muscles, and neck are relaxed and whether your posture is nice and tall. This is great for running better because your muscles work better when they are not carrying tension. This helps keep injuries at bay as well.
I studied The Alexander Technique which helps bring more awareness to your body and posture and help remove tensions from your body. I highly recommend it for athletes, people who spend a lot of time in front of a computer or anyone who suffers from backache. More information here:
Tips for dealing with stress
The first step is recognising stress and this is where mindfulness training comes in.
First you must be aware of the mental dialogue in your head. Notice specific thoughts that are going through your mind.
Accept the thoughts and the situation in that moment. Don’t battle against it.
Understand the emotions that are connected to the thoughts. An example: You’re at the starting line of a race and you’re suffering from stomach-churning pre-race nerves. Your body is tense and there’s a sense of doom. You observe the emotions and feelings in the body and understand that this is the natural buzz associated with tackling a new challenge.
You decide if this line of thinking is productive to you or not. You say to your mind “Thank you for sharing“. You make the choice that these emotions (as in the example above) are productive to your performance and re-label them as “excitement” rather than “doom”. This helps control your breathing, bring awareness to relaxing the muscles in your body and bring yourself back to a state of calm.
Complete your action plan with calmness instead of distress.
Basically you are training to put some distance between the feelings and the thoughts and noticing how your body responds. It is worth remembering that some level of stress is normal in training and it does serve an important purpose. Convert your nerves into excitement to fuel the competitive fire in a race.
The above message is not just for runners but can be applied to all aspects in life as we all tend to live stressful situations. The key is to be aware.